Friday, 7 February 2014

The SSQ-Adventure – For the Fearless Guardians of Food Safety and Quality

Are you in the food safety, quality management and auditing business and
wondering about where SSQA could take you? Why not take a look or even go further and try the SSQA adventure?

Success only eludes those who overlook practical solutions.

Fear, Cynicism, Apathy, Pessimism and Capitulation constitute a frightening bundle. Thankfully, all of these can be easily defeated by the
SSQA concept with its implicit pragmatic determination to ensure improvements.

Justified and Unjustified Resistance to this Change:

A
critical look at a new concept like SSQA is always wise. Nobody wants to go on
a fool’s errand. At the same time, it is reasonable to consider what happens if
a person insists on seeing the results of a unique adventure before deciding
whether or not to go on the adventure. A resignation that “it will not work”
without due consideration is not the spirit of profitable adventure.

To blindly criticize
all presented ideas is not wise; to avoid criticizing anything is not helpful; to offer criticism
without suggesting solutions is worst.

The wise
thing to do with presented ideas is to carefully examine them, provide
constructive criticisms where necessary but with suggestions of reasonable and
practical alternatives. People who are able and have the right to criticize an
idea, must know enough about what is better. Otherwise, they do not know enough
and do not have the right to criticize. A much hopeless state is when a person
does not know and does not wish to learn.

What convinced explorers like Christopher Columbus to

set sail?

An
adventure may be initially perceived as a crazy and useless idea. To simply
reach such a conclusion without due consideration is not reasonable. An
adventure may also be unique in the sense that nobody has ever done it. That
does not mean a complete absence of things from which to learn in other to
undertake the adventure. A wise thing to do will be to consider the
possibilities, going to as much detail as possible from things that are already known
and things that are reasonably predictable. Such a wise consideration is
essential in order to establish the usefulness and adequately prepare to take
the adventure.

With the right sail arrangement and sailing
strategy, even rough winds can be your friend.

With
SSQA, much is already known and much can be predicted from events that are
taking place in the industry. Principles like HACCP and good manufacturing
practices have been proven to work and need little if any further
investigation. SSQA incorporates these principles and practices and any fear
that “it will not work” is effectively dispelled.
An adventure that shares the application of proven principles like SSQA is not
a “fool’s errand”. On the question of its usefulness, it eliminates many unnecessary bottlenecks to which many companies are currently subjected.

The SSQA implementation manual explains:

The contrast between SSQA and what already exists;

How SSQA could work given the forces at play and dominating the
marketplace; and

How the results of SSQA implementation are demonstrated.

SSQA
builds trust; not surveillance posts among partners:

The contrast between
SSQA and existing schemes is not in the content or even the objectives; it is
in the perspective and principles. SSQA is not an accreditation scheme and it
is not an auditing framework. No special auditing company accreditation,
auditor qualifications and registration are required. All auditing functions in
the process of implementing the SSQA concept are simply expected to be
performed by individuals with the right educational background and/or industry
experience that are applicable and relevant to the operations audited.

SSQA
avoids certain fixations:

SSQA is not fixated
on certification (of the concept, the programs, the operations, the auditors,
etc.); but fixated on education, practice, experience.

SSQA is not an
auditing framework that examines “compliance” with the usual restrictions about
auditing versus consulting; SSQA is a direct management framework that welcomes
deliberate and meaningful dialogue among participants.

There are no forced
audits by external parties; only self-motivated audits with direct involvement
of stakeholders who actually gain in the success achieved or suffer loss due to failed control
systems.

SSQA is not fixated
on theoretical, make-belief confidence; it thrives on actual confidence derived from
verifiable results that are assessed against the real intentions of adopting
the concept and engaging in the related programs and practices.

SSQA does not impose
special accreditation schemes upon auditing bodies and auditors; it only
encourages formal college, university and continuing professional
education as well as the self-motivated professional integrity of system
developers and managers.

As for
"regulating the system”, we again find another difference between the SSQA
concept and auditing schemes. Operations that adopt the SSQA principles are
expected to self-regulate as the means for self-preservation. This poses the
usual questions about operations’ lacking integrity, conflicts of interest,
acceptance by the market, etc. These factors, particularly the supposed
conflicts of interest and lack of integrity, only play out negatively and need
regulation under the “current accreditation schemes”. SSQA is not an
accreditation scheme. The successful implementation of the SSQA concept
automatically means that an operation proceeds realistically to ensure the
safety, security and quality of products or outputs. This removes the need for
additional external regulation system outside of the constitutional regulations
and legal requirements of the jurisdictions where the operation is located and
does business. The operation complies with such constitutional regulations and
legal requirements else it has not successfully implemented SSQA.

Concerning the
acceptance of an operation’s SSQA initiatives by the customers, such acceptance
is not an issue where SSQA has been successfully implemented. The successful
adoption of the SSQA concept automatically means that product safety, security
and quality assurance programs are implemented with the blessings, as it were,
and active participation of these customers that, by default, are also partners
in the SSQA implementation process.

Granted, anything
that is truly new and original is difficult to find under the sun. The SSQA
concept is certainly not some strange new and original concept. It only
presents unique perspective in the business of ensuring consumer safety and
satisfaction. The SSQA concept is not completely original. It only has some
differentiating features in comparison against other proposed concepts or
schemes. Some of the differences have been listed earlier. The manual and other
published articles also list some key differences. This does not mean that SSQA
is totally divorced from proven principles. For example, the Codex principles
of HACCP and good manufacturing practices have been cited and constitute
portions of the SSQA implementation manual. As noted in the manual under the
heading “Why SSQA”, “the adoption of the SSQA concept by an operation means
that the operation actively encourages its personnel to search, investigate,
recognize, adopt and expand upon winning ideas. Such ideas could come from
current and future excellence-producing management approaches. In that sense,
SSQA is didactic, eclectic and progressive. . .” SSQA is not isolated it its
uniqueness. It is built on a solution framework that has been developed from observing
the failures in the industry.

You can check out the
failures for yourself. Simply follow the news about unrelenting recalls due to
very preventable situations such as allergen contamination and mislabelling
involving “certified” operations while the number of such “certified”
operations continues to grow. As one ineffective knee-jerk solution built on
the same framework of distrust replaces another in the attempts to solve the
problem, it should be obvious enough that a radical solution is needed.

The SSQA concept
consists of strategies that may seem too radical to some people or even
frightening to others. For example, the idea of bypassing accreditation
processes, auditor registration, rigorous external certification, et cetera is
not a thought that some in the industry can handle at this time. Many people in
the industry are almost irredeemably fixated on setting up programs according
to some convoluted schemes that are built and thrive on distrust. Some see
through all of that but all they feel they can do is grumble about the
impositions. They must simply yield they say because it is the way things are.

Yes,
it is the way things are but they can be different with a different (SSQA)
perspective. The SSQA concept includes strategies for addressing many of the
issues and bottlenecks that presently constrain the industry. Rescue
and Recovery is possible for any operation that snaps out of the
aforementioned fixation. For all practical purposes, catching the spirit of
SSQA cannot happen overnight but the process can begin with a look at the SSQA
Manual. Users of the manual are expected to increasingly learn and apply
SSQA principles in their operations. This could be done independently (without
external pressures) or with assistance from GCSE-Food & Health Protection
through theEnrolment
Program.

In your operation or opinion, which of these ranks the highest as an area needing help from an external party?

As a consumer or user of food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices or cosmetics, how would you rank safety, availability and price in order of importance from left (most important) to right (least important)?